


Jennie: America's number one diaper doll!

by AgonyEcstasyIrony



Series: The Fabulous Diapered Ladies of Maple Avenue (and Beyond!) [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: 50's Housewives, ABDL, Other, Patriarchy, Toys, Wetting, messing, spanking mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 21:10:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19326166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgonyEcstasyIrony/pseuds/AgonyEcstasyIrony
Summary: In the 50's, toys were used to prepare young girls for their lives as women. Think of the many baby dolls that were made to prepare women for being a mommy. Think of Barbie, the platonic ideal of American womanhood.In the world of Maple Avenue, toys are used to prepare girls for motherhood...and boys for fatherhood. This is the story behind Jennie, America's number one diaper doll.





	Jennie: America's number one diaper doll!

In the 1940's, Harold Lester moved from southern New Jersey to the pretty seaside Southern California neighborhood of Bayridge with his wife Ruth and their two children, Michael and Andrea. After the war, they bought out the struggling Pacific Leather Corporation and turned into a toy company called Palcorp, which had a successful line of toy guns and weapons for boys and baby dolls for girls. But Ruth held a position of power in the company that was rare for a woman to have in any American company at the time and she wanted to the company to have something more gender neutral.

At the dinner table, in business meetings, when Harold was changing Ruth or Andrea's diaper, Ruth would often ask Harold the same question; "Why can't we make something Andrea and Michael can both play with?" And he would say the same answer; "because there's nothing on Earth they could ever both play with."  
  
Eventually, they did find one. The family took a trip to Paris over the children's summer vacation, as Harold wanted to donate some pieces from his art collection to a museum. Andrea was going through a French phase after seeing the movie  _Marie Antoinette: Queen of Tragedy_ , and wanted to buy a special embroidered cloth diaper with a fleur-de-lis just like the one she had in the movie. While shopping for one in the Rue de las Paix, Ruth came across a strange doll wearing a diaper.

In her best French, she asked the clerk " _Excuse me, sir._   _What can you tell me about the doll?_ "

The clerk was confused to see a woman--an American at that--looking at this doll. _"_ _Her name is Genevieve. It's a gag gift that men buy for their girlfriends"_  
  
 _"What's the gag?"_  
  
Trying to stifle a giggle, the clerk said  _"It means he wants to change her diaper."_

 

Ruth was silent.

_"You know, he wants to--"_

_"Have sex with her, yes I figured that out. But if you didn't know that, you'd probably think this would be a good toy for your children."_   
  
_"...I never thought of it like that. But why do you ask?"_   
  
_"My husband and I run a very big toy company in America, and I want to see if I could get in contact with the manufacturer of this product."_

_"I knew you were American by the way you spoke. I can ring you up."_  
  
 _"Also, do you know where I can find a cloth diaper with a fleur-de-lis on it?"_  
  
 _"Like in_  Queen of Tragedy _? I know a shop in the Latin Quarter that sells them."_  
  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

Upon returning back to the hotel, Ruth gave Genevieve to her children. They both loved it: Andrea loved dressing her up in the different outfits, and Michael liked taking care of her like he really was her husband. After she called up the original French manufacturer, they got to work.

First, they made some adjustments. For their baby dolls, Palco had a patent pending mechanism that made the doll actually wet itself, and Ruth wanted to have it in the new doll. They had to tone down some of the racier outfits for the American version, and added more articulation in the legs. Finally, the name Jenny was chosen as an Americanization of the original French name. The final product was ready to go, but adults in test markets had mixed feelings. 

It seemed like a bust until a mother came in at the New York Toy Fair with two children, a girl named Darla and a boy named Bruce. Darla was a roughneck tomboy, who hated wearing diapers and was almost kicked out of the fair for attempting to use the toilets. Bruce was a timid momma's boy, who seemed scared of everything around him. But when they played with Jennie, it was a different story. Darla told her mother "Jennie's so well-groomed, Mommy!", while Bruce said that "he liked acting like her husband".

It was then that Palcorp found the perfect marketing gimmick.

\------------------------------------------------------------

_(the Palcorp logo appears)_

_New from Palcorp, America's number one toy company, comes America's newest sweetheart: Jennie!_

_(cut to a close up of the Jennie doll. Her eyes look away somewhat bashfully, while her mouth has a coquettish smile)_

_Jennie's our first toy for girls and for boys!_

_(a young girl dresses Jennie up and brushes her hair)_

_Girls will love dressing up Jenny and making up stories for her! She's a great role model for any young girl._

_GIRL: "When I grow up, I wanna be just like Jennie!"_

_(a boy changes Jennie's diaper)_

_But Jennie allows boys to play husband! She uses her diaper just like a real lady! Help your rough and tumble boy become the dream husband of tomorrow!_  
  
BOY: "Now I know the real way to treat a lady!"

_Buy Jenny wherever fine Palcorp products are sold, or write to us for a special catalog! And remember: it's more fun with Palcorp!_

-transcript of the original Jenny commercial, aired in 1957.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Sharon Tanner bought a Jenny doll for her young son James for his birthday. James loved pretending to be her husband, and he especially loved spanking her soft rubber bottom with the little paddle. Sharon loved playing with her little Jimmy, seeing him act so grown up. He was just like his father!

After the birthday party, when James was in bed and Sharon had gotten a clean and fresh diaper, she said to John "It's funny. When we were Jimmy's age, boys who played with dolls were sissies and mama's boys. Now, they make dolls that teach boys how to change a lady's diaper. Masculinity's really changed, huh?"  
  
John smiled. "Y'know, a hundred years ago blue was the girls' color and pink was the boys'. Whose to say what'll happen in a hundred years?"

**Author's Note:**

> You know, I may have accidentally made the Mapleverse a smidge more progressive than the actual 50's. But who cares, the idea of this was funny.
> 
> The story behind the creation of Jenny is pretty similar to the one for Barbie, which was based off of a German doll called Lili that was sold in smoke shops as a gag gift for men to give their girlfriends. Although unlike Palcorp, Mattel just ripped off Lili without bothering to notify the original manufacturers. I chose France because America in the 50's had a big love affair with everything French, and the French loved America back.
> 
> We also have some more worldbuilding with Bayridge, an industrial suburb close to Point Pleasant. I based Bayridge off of Hawthorne, the city where Mattel was headquartered in the 50's. Most would probably remember Hawthorne as the hometown of the Beach Boys, but it and the surrounding suburbs in the South Bay and the Harbor were home to a lot of the Los Angeles area's aerospace/defense and manufacturing industries.


End file.
